


Why is there straw lying around?

by Ruis



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Rumpelstilzchen | Rumpelstiltskin (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gratuitous Porn Reference, Humor, Nonlinear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/pseuds/Ruis
Summary: I could not help but stare when the King’s Advisor – a creepy wrinkled little guy whose name I didn’t quite catch, accompanied by a pair of silent guards, all wearing black – led me into a secret chamber in the treasury. The room was dominated by the largest and most likely also the most expensive spinning wheel I’d ever see in my life, finely crafted with one of these modern foot-powered mechanisms. That was great, I’d always wanted one of those. The circumstances, however, were another matter entirely.(Rated for porn reference - I simply could not pass over this particular crossover possibility - although nothing explicit is happening.)





	Why is there straw lying around?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/gifts).



I could not help but stare when the King’s Advisor – a creepy wrinkled little guy whose name I didn’t quite catch, accompanied by a pair of silent guards, all wearing black – led me into a secret chamber in the treasury. The room was dominated by the largest and most likely also the most expensive spinning wheel I’d ever see in my life, finely crafted with one of these modern foot-powered mechanisms. That was great, I’d always wanted one of those. The circumstances, however, were another matter entirely.

The young man stood in the corner with his hands clasped behind his back. I was not surprised to see the king wearing something completely ridiculous again, his dark cloak and boots probably intended as a concession to the clandestine nature of this meeting but certainly not about to be high fashion anytime soon. Still, it was kind of nice to see him again. Not reassuringly, he seemed almost as confused about the whole thing as I was. He looked at me, then at his horrible advisor, then back at me again. “So…”, he said. “Remind me again. Why is there straw lying around?” 

Inwardly smiling despite the odd situation, I bit back the urge to remove a stray piece of straw from his hair. King or no king, I had to admit he was kind of cute, in that absentminded way of his. I just hoped he would not turn out to be quite as insane as some of his relatives. You hear all kinds of crazy stories about royalty, after all, and this had all the potential of becoming another one. 

“Why are you wearing a mask?”, I blurted out. Of all the questions running through my mind, this one seemed to have the lowest potential for disaster. To think I had just been hanging out in my room, designing my dress for the may dance and making some idle drawings even knowing I could not afford any of the fine linens and pearls I’d need for my favorite draft so far, when… 

\------

„Aaaaaaaaal-heit!“, I heard my mother yell from the general vicinity of the town house’s main entrance. She sounded more than just a bit irritated, with that whining tone in her voice that always reminded me of a pregnant cow, and I wondered what I’d done wrong in her eyes this time. “There’s a young man here to see you! On a matter of national security. Or so he says.” When I slowly made my way down the stairs, using the time to mock-casually throw my second-newest shawl – the one with white daisy embroidery on light green wool - over my shoulders, she hissed at me, “National security? Is that what you young people call it these days?”

I was mystified. I mean, I had a pretty good idea which of the town’s young men would like to talk to me, but none of them would need that kind of pretense. And none of them, at least I hoped so, would be foolish enough to go through my mother, and with such a feeble excuse to boot. Generally, I try to avoid stupid guys – trust me, that old German saying about dumb isn’t actually true – so I had absolutely no idea who the idiot at the door was.

Indeed, there was a young man, and one I’d never seen before, either. I’d have remembered him. He would’ve been kind of attractive, too, with his black feathery hair and clear blue eyes, if not for his outfit. His outfit! He wore what I could only presume to be the latest fad in the big city, a rich kid imitating what he imagined poor people would wear, perfectly fine trousers artificially ripped at strategic places and everything. 

He was nervously shifting from one foot to the other, and I wondered why he was actually here. “Good afternoon, Mr. National Security”, I said, haughtily rearranging my shawl as if I hadn’t carefully planned the position of the folds to begin with. He actually had the grace to look a bit embarrassed at that. Really cute. “About that”, he replied. “Actually. You’re Miller’s Alheit, right?” As if he didn’t know. He had found the way to our front door somehow, hadn’t he? 

\------

The whole thing was ludicrous, of course. Apparently, the king thought so, too, judging by his frown. Somehow I did not envy him, either, stuck with a tiny kingdom, eccentric – if you had power, you were never outright called insane, even if you kept your girlfriend in a glass coffin – relatives, an apparently quite fragile national economy – who would have thought – and, worst of it, an advisor like this. 

Scary guy, really, and I wondered why he’d ever been hired in the first place. Even standing knee-deep in a pile of straw, he managed to cut a menacing figure in spite of his low body height. The kind of guy you’d expect to cackle evilly while dancing around a fire at night, I mused, although I guess I was not being entirely fair there. Surely the man was trying to do his best in the service of the crown, even if he had some funny ideas that included locking me in the treasury with a spinning wheel.

“…and so you see, the potential threat to the value of our currency could not simply be ignored…”, the King’s Advisor droned on. I was pretty close to telling him just where he could shove that spindle. Straw to gold, seriously? Of all the things dad could have bragged about … He could have told his friends at the bar about my crafting skills or my up-and-coming fashion business, but no – of course he had to pick the one thing that would unfailingly get me arrested. And by the king in person, too, who had been polite but firm when he’d asked me to accompany him back to the palace.

\------

Imagine how shocked I was when he led me to the carriage he had tactfully bidden to wait around the corner. “There must’ve been some kind of mix-up”, I told him. “Um. Your Majesty, or whatever.” That came out sounding really bad, but fortunately the king did not seem to mind. Then again, he would not have me arrested for lese majesty while he was currently being busy arresting me for something else, right? He did not seem to be a bad guy, no matter how much I itched to give him a stern talking to about his dress sense, or rather lack thereof.

All things considered, the ride to the royal palace was quite pleasant, actually. It was a lovely afternoon for journeying, sunny but not too hot, and I’d never been to the capital city before. Under slightly different circumstances, I would’ve been excited. I also loved how smoothly the carriage moved even over cobbled roads and would have loved to look at the spring mechanisms involved – dad’s cart could use an upgrade, no doubt about that! 

Still, I was in the company of a king, and while he was pleasant enough company, pointing out all kinds of landmarks along the way as if this were an ordinary pleasure trip – he seemed just as overwhelmed by the whole mess as I was, which reassured me a bit – he only gave me a blank look when I tried to ask technical questions. He did seem to be genuinely interested in my occupation, though. “So what is it you do as a, uh, fashion designer, was it?”, he asked me. Of course I was happy to explain to him all about spinning, weaving, drafting and sewing, and if I went a bit overboard on the technical details of all the fascinating machinery involved, then surely that could be excused as payback for the arrest, or whatever this was.

Surely, it was not normal for kings to just happily chat with their prisoners, and yet that’s exactly what happened, him telling me about his life and friends and what they got up to together. He prattled on, telling me some anecdote about some famous pea he’d recently seen in a museum. The things rich people get up to! If I wanted to see a pea I’d just go to the pantry, but apparently that kind of thing just doesn’t cut it for royalty. I was having a hard time following his tale and was only listening with half an ear, until he startled me. 

“…and then my advisor told me how he wanted to have my baby… Just making sure you’re still listening, haha” – no, clearly this was not an ordinary arrest. “I’m sure this misunderstanding will be sorted out in no time”, the king told me when at our arrival on the palace grounds he left me to the company of his advisor. I have to admit I was looking when the climbed out of the carriage – yes, a common girl isn’t supposed to check out royalty, but now at least I began to get the point of those ill-fitting trousers – and I did not protest when I was led to a luxurious suite. However, I was not quite so distracted as to not notice the King’s Advisor lock the door behind me with a final-sounding click.

\------

Finally alone after the King’s Advisor had retired for the evening, not without reminding me how he’d like the pile to be processed come sunrise, we looked at each other, the king and I in a room filled with straw. From what I saw on his face, he was trying to figure out how to ask me whether I could really spin straw into gold, and I thought better of his intelligence when in the end he refrained from doing so. I smiled at him. And then I realized he was just about to ask something entirely else.

**Author's Note:**

> So... When I saw your prompt about giving the Miller's Daughter a happier story, this is what immediately popped into my mind although I wasn't sure I'd get around to actually writing it. It was a lot of fun to make Alheit the confident (and snarky) person she is. I hope it amuses you.
> 
> A note about the setting: While the origins of this fairy-tale are older than that, I based this on the Grimms' version, which is early 19th century but set in a world considered old-fashioned even then, so my headcanon is something like 14th or 15th century Germany although I deliberately used modern language when Alheit is talking. Referring to the main character's name was surprisingly tricky, though. Being an unmarried woman, her "family name" would be defined by her father's occupation, but using "Miller's Alheit" (a direct translation of "Müllers Alheit") instead of "Alheit Miller" means the characters are talking in some Low German dialect. (Of course, the character is called "Alheit", not the High German "Adelheid", so...) I refrained from finding out which version of the word "Müller" would have be used since the story had to be written in English anyway - which is good because it saved me a sh*tload of research that would have been unjustifiable for crackfic anyway. Also, a spinning wheel with a foot pedal would have been considered high tech, LOL. The quotes "Why is there straw lying around?" and "Why are you wearing a mask?" are, obviously, a reference to the probably most famous piece of German pornography ever produced.


End file.
